tweaked all the time, I mean ALL the time.

something I use, but not often.

I'm curious as to how the rest of the TB community relate to their tone controls.

I have a J-bass and I want to re-wire it to stereo. I'm thinking of simply taking out the tone pot since I don't change it, ever. That way I can just use existing holes in the control plate. I know that ganged pots are an option but I don't feel the need for it.

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You need to understand by removing your tone control you will be drastically changing the tone of your bass. The tone circuit in a passive bass loads the pickup even when it is all the way up. By removing the pot and cap your bass will get much brighter sounding. I do not recommend this mod at all.

You need to understand by removing your tone control you will be drastically changing the tone of your bass. The tone circuit in a passive bass loads the pickup even when it is all the way up. By removing the pot and cap your bass will get much brighter sounding. I do not recommend this mod at all.

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It's only a very slight change. In any case, all you have to do is replace the pot with a fixed resistor or cavity-mounted trimmer pot.

It depends on the signal's impedance and the pot value. After a certain point, the resistance of the pot becomes so great for the signal impedance that very little signal is passed to the capacitor, and thus, there is little difference between a relatively high finite resistance and an infinite resistance. If you are using a 250k pot and/or relatively high impedance pickups, you can usually hear a slight difference when bypassing the tone control. (And hence some players' preference for bypassable tone controls.) In certain cases, the use of 500k pots results in very little to no difference in tone, compared to removing the tone control. This is especially true of lower impedance pickups. In any case, the point is, when there is an audible difference, it is slight, and not extreme.

I use mine all the time. But if you don't, why do you care what I think? Give it a try. You are obviously pretty good at this kind of thing. You should be able to UNDO it as easily as you did it. Go for it! (And report back here with the results.)

It depends on the signal's impedance and the pot value. After a certain point, the resistance of the pot becomes so great for the signal impedance that very little signal is passed to the capacitor, and thus, there is little difference between a relatively high finite resistance and an infinite resistance. If you are using a 250k pot and/or relatively high impedance pickups, you can usually hear a slight difference when bypassing the tone control. (And hence some players' preference for bypassable tone controls.) In certain cases, the use of 500k pots results in very little to no difference in tone, compared to removing the tone control. This is especially true of lower impedance pickups. In any case, the point is, when there is an audible difference, it is slight, and not extreme.

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Here is where we agree. Your definition of slight and my definition of drastic are one and the same. There is a drastic difference in a J Bass/Fender without the tone circuit as compared to with. For me it is an unusable option, YMMV.